Emancipation Proclamation

 

"That on the first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, all persons held as slaves within any State or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free; and the Executive Government of the United States, including the military and naval authority thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons, and will do no act or acts to repress such persons, or any of them, in any efforts they may make for their actual freedom.

"That the Executive will, on the first day of January aforesaid, by proclamation, designate the States and parts of States, if any, in which the people thereof, respectively, shall then be in rebellion against the United States; and the fact that any State, or the people thereof, shall on that day be, in good faith, represented in the Congress of the United States by members chosen thereto at elections wherein a majority of the qualified voters of such State shall have participated, shall, in the absence of strong countervailing testimony, be deemed conclusive evidence that such State, and the people thereof, are not then in rebellion against the United States."

Now, therefore I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, by virtue of the power in me vested as Commander-in-Chief, of the Army and Navy of the United States in time of actual armed rebellion against the authority and government of the United States, and as a fit and necessary war measure for suppressing said rebellion, do, on this first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and in accordance with my purpose so to do publicly proclaimed for the full period of one hundred days, from the day first above mentioned, order and designate as the States and parts of States wherein the people thereof respectively, are this day in rebellion against the United States, the following, to wit:

Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana, (except the Parishes of St. Bernard, Plaquemines, Jefferson, St. John, St. Charles, St. James Ascension, Assumption, Terrebonne, Lafourche, St. Mary, St. Martin, and Orleans, including the City of New Orleans) Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia, (except the forty-eight counties designated as West Virginia, and also the counties of Berkley, Accomack, Northampton, Elizabeth City, York, Princess Ann, and Norfolk, including the cities of Norfolk and Portsmouth[)], and which excepted parts, are for the present, left precisely as if this proclamation were not issued.

And by virtue of the power, and for the purpose aforesaid, I do order and declare that all persons held as slaves within said designated States, and parts of States, are, and henceforward shall be free; and that the Executive government of the United States, including the military and naval authorities thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of said persons.

And I hereby enjoin upon the people so declared to be free to abstain from all violence, unless in necessary self-defense; and I recommend to them that, in all cases when allowed, they labor faithfully for reasonable wages.

And I further declare and make known, that such persons of suitable condition, will be received into the armed service of the United States to garrison forts, positions, stations, and other places, and to man vessels of all sorts in said service.

And upon this act, sincerely believed to be an act of justice, warranted by the Constitution, upon military necessity, I invoke the considerate judgment of mankind, and the gracious favor of Almighty God.

In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.

Done at the City of Washington, this first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the Independence of the United States of America the eighty-seventh.

By the President: ABRAHAM LINCOLN
WILLIAM H. SEWARD, Secretary of State.

 

 

 

On June 19, 1865, two and a half years after President Abraham Lincoln’s historic Emancipation Proclamation, U.S. Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger issued General Order No. 3, which informed the people of Texas that all enslaved people were now free. Granger commanded the Headquarters District of Texas, and his troops had arrived in Galveston the previous day.

This order represents the Federal Government’s final execution and fulfillment of the terms of the Emancipation Proclamation. The people to whom this order was addressed were the last group of Americans to be informed that all formerly enslaved persons were now free.

 

General Order No. 3: “The people are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of personal rights and of property, between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them, becomes that between employer and hired labor: The Freedmen are advised to remain at their present homes, and work for wages. They are informed that they will not be allowed to collect at military posts; and that they will not be supported in idleness either there or elsewhere.”

 

MENDMENT XIII

Section 1.
Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

Section 2.
Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

Passed by Congress January 31, 1865. Ratified December 6, 1865.

 

Two states — Delaware and Kentucky — still allowed slavery until the 13th Amendment was ratified, six months after Juneteenth.

 

The legal designation of Juneteenth as a federal holiday recognizes a pivotal moment in U.S. history

 

That is the basics, but you can dwell into the achieves and refer to historians’ diagnosis of how and why and then what happened. My thought is the day one of these announcements were made in the local community and what was the immediate reaction. 

Whether it was a posted newspaper or a mail rider or just word-of-mouth, the word went out that life had changed. Children still had to be fed and wood had to be chopped and fields had to be worked, but with a few words’ things were different.

What did the plantation owner say to the newly freed? Did the former enslaved gather their belongings and walk down the road? What were the first words between the colonist and their chattel for 200 years?

Did they feel someone had just opened the barn door and let all the horses free or had gone into their house and taken all their property? Did they say I’ll still do the work, but now for monetary compensation? What is the going rate for people who worked under the whip?

Slavery was not new to the colonies. From times beginnings, some take power over others and force them to duties too difficult for a horse or a mule to accomplish under the threat of punishment.

What do you do when you are suddenly free?

Like the end of war, when do you know it is really over and then you start picking up the pieces and starting over again?

If suddenly a planter had to pay for workers that where formally free, how does that cut into the profits of running a business? Who will do the cooking and the cleaning and the caring for the children and maintenance of the horses?

No one (that I’ve heard of) hugged each other and went to church (for they were still segregated, like the schools) and read the ‘good book’ on how we are all equal and should love one another?

Last year the monuments of the leaders of a rebellious group of states lost a bloody senseless war were taken down from what was called ‘Monument Avenue’. These symbols of a ‘lost cause’ but for years were a tourist attraction to the capitol city that were as history worthy as Berlin after the second world war. For years, families sent they young men to shoot at each other than celebrate a victory or wipe their wounds in defeat. When surrender was finally declared, the remainders of the tattered losers had to march before the victors and relinquish their weapons (a squirrel hunting rifle from back in the hollow or whatever registered by the army) and walk away empty handed. Then the boys had to walk for months back home to find out what is left.

That moment in time when life changes, like a divorce, and moments later life is different. People you knew and lived with and worked with and shared bread were now gone.

The south (at least in my city) celebrated the losing with monuments and parades struggling to release reality of equality of all humans. Then those pesky politicians kept writing bills and amendments and proclamations giving women the right to vote and all children being exposed to the same education and same sex came out of the shadows and off the musical stages with the assistance of media and instant messaging.

Still there was bigotry and with the additions of weapons, the slaughter continues even on Juneteenth celebrations.

We can proclaim and pronounce and declare, but we still are fearful of each other.

Maybe tomorrow, I’ll wake up and everyone has changed?